Photograph of Treehouse students in school reception
Following our call for ideas on designing special schools, I was invited to visit the Treehouse School – which is part of the Pears National Centre for Autism Education and the Treehouse charity. Not only is it a truly inspirational building but also a beacon of good practice in designing autism friendly environments.
Given the current political context it is an interesting model – founded on a vision of a committed group of parents in the late 90s and 10 years later developed into a leading independent non maintained special school. The new building is a testament to the commitment of the executive headteacher (Gill Bierschenk), trustees and the energy of all those involved in the design and delivery of the school.
As with many special schools I’ve visited, the real success is in the thought given to how young people and staff will use the school in practice, in the balance between great functional design and hard wearing and flexible rooms and spaces plus the creation a truly safe and enriching environment. It is also about attention to detail – of which there are an abundance of examples at the school. Some of the details at the school that stood out for me – personally – were:
- a huge office-style staffroom with over 140 staff, with work, meeting and chill out space, including a room set aside for staff to use if they feel they need to recharge emotionally
- whiteboards out of the classrooms and instead located in communal spaces – where a lot of the learning and interaction with students takes place
- a family shower and washroom that parents can use with young people to equip them for independence
- catering for older students in a 6th form common room/space including sofas, gym equipment, playstation and nintendo wii’s
- dual mirrors and hairdressers chairs adjacent to the corridor so young female students can learn to do their make up with adult supervision
The head feels the school is very much work in progress – which is refreshing and humbling given what the school and young people achieve – often against the odds. Autism is a condition that now affects 1 in a 100 young people so designing environments in both mainstream and special schools will no doubt become much more prominent in people’s thinking.
You can see some photos of the school here.
Related posts:
[...] School in Leicester and the Pears National Centre for Autism Education in London – which we posted about a few weeks [...]